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Re: Wood working equipment

I looked this up just the other day because I made myself a new deep box with finger joints. The wood cost $15.00 at home depot and would make 1.25 boxes. Western Bee sells the unassembled box for less than $9.00 or $11.25 for 1.25 boxes.

If I had a lumber mill close by I would look into mill ends or ask about lumber cut closer to the dimension I need. I would not want them pre cut to width but closer so that there is not so much waste. you can figure almost a quarter of a 1X12 is waste. In this case that is $3.25 of wood that went on the shop floor. I can use two small pieces of it for hand holds and that is about it. even with adjusting for what I really used I built a box with $10.00 worth of wood that I could have bought for $9.00. Cheaper wood is a must if you want to save money making boxes. Very cheap wood.

Re: Wood working equipment

You must have very expensive wood there! I get a #3 grade 1 x 12 8' long for about 9 bucks. If I fish around a bit, sometimes the 12' ones are cheaper and better, and you can make a box from the 8' one. I you get 2 12' boards and cut corretly, you get 3 boxes plus some extra sides or ends with very little waste. Four 12' boards will give you seven boxes, I think, I'd have to check my figures again.

I use the trim for handles, inner cover rims, and frame parts (bottom bars mostly as I don't like cutting the taper on small pieces on the end).

A 1x8 makes a nice medium or shallow, with the added benefit of the "scrap" for handles and etc from the shallow.

I don't throw out much scrap, most of it is mis-cuts.

If you want defect free boxes, it's cheaper to buy them if you don't have to pay shipping. For me, shipping, even from Kelley which isn't too far away, is more than the boxes. Figur that in, and making your own is pretty cheap.

I do have a pile of poplar lumber I can plane down, but I prefer the pine -- the poplar is really too nice to use for bee boxes.

Re: Wood working equipment

The Grizzly saw is a professional cabinet saw and even though its made in Taiwan it still holds up its quality. However unless you are a woodworker, you would not need the saw just for beehives... unless you have extra money.

Re: Wood working equipment

Not much experience here ut I use a cheaper porter cable job site style table saw, stacked dado, and a 12" Bosch dual compound sliding miter saw. The max dados I can stack on my cheaper saw is 1/2" so I set up for 3/8" rabetts and run them through twice to get the 3/4" wide dado. I get my cypress from a mill locally for $1.80/ board foot. It's #1 grade with no knots. It all comes in 12 bys and the rough cut dimensions are usually 1-1.25" thick. Get them to plane them down to 3/4" thick.

Re: Wood working equipment

John RC, at 1.80 per board foot and giving 6 feet of board per box I can still buy them cheaper. of course you are using Cypress which changes everything.

psfred. I live nearly within walking distance of the 8th most expensive place to live in the U.S. Even more I do notice that prices on all sorts of things seems to be much lower than I see here. I am shocked when I visit home (Kansas) and see the prices on things like sporting goods and hardware. It is not uncommon to see prices as much as half of what we have on sale here.

Re: Wood working equipment

Originally Posted by Moon

Either some time this summer or early next fall I'm going to put together a wood working shop so I can build my own hive bodies and supers from the ground up. I doubt that I'll build my own frames because that seems like it would be extremely tedious work and you're probably money ahead just to buy pre-cut pieces and assemble yourself, however, I think I would save a boat load of cash if I were to buy lumber direct from a saw mill and build the hive bodies myself. I'm interested in what type of equipment I would need to build hive bodies the same as what is typically sold as the industry standard. Finger joints (not sure if that's what they are) hand holds cut into the boxes themselves etc... I think all if not the majority of it can be done with a table saw but I'm not 100%. Speed and efficiency is my number one concern. Just because a job CAN be done a certain way doesn't necessarily mean that is the most time efficient way of doing it. I've been looking at various table saws but I'm not sure which brand to go with.

Re: Wood working equipment

Well, you don't have much choice about prices in some places. Here I can get 1x4s 4' long for $1.17 on sale, and if I pick through the pile a bit, I get nearly knot free straight ones. Takes two to make a screen bottom board for a standard 10 frame, one for a nuc. Hard to pay $17 plus shipping from Kelley (I do need a piece of 1x6 too, though, but that's only $2.60).

At any rate, the only thing I could suggest is that you look for a higher end lumber yard (not the box stores like Lowes or HD) that carries hardwood and furniture grade lumber and go see them. They are used to people with specific requests, and often supply the better grade builders, so they tend to end up with all sort of cutoffs and less than perfect returns they can't sell as high grade lumber. Ask them for "cut-offs" -- you can use anything longer than 18 inches and more than 5 11/16" wide so longs as it's fairly straight and flat and has tight knots, so they may have a pile of stuff for you periodically at very reasonable prices. Some cup and warp or twist is managable for bee boxes, after all. Someone else has already paid for it, it's just stuff in the way for them, so you can get it cheap if you ask.

As I said, I really don't save money on the wood most of the time (although I did find some cutoffs earlier so I got a medium box for $3.50), but shipping kills me -- 5 mediums would have cost me $35 in shipping alone, and I can buy enough lumber to make six for that price.

Re: Wood working equipment

I know I'm late to this thread, but if you're going to shell out money for a professional cabinet saw, I'm with Jim134 on the SawStop. I've had a SawStop PCS for a few years now, and it is awesome. Plus, no chance of losing fingers and more. Had a buddy back in SC get his hand caught up in a dado blade and he will never be the same. His right hand is fairly useless anymore. Sad. I bought the Sawstop for the safety, but was super impressed with the quality!

Also, you don't need a 1" dado blade to make box joints. You can make a box joint any size you want...1" is just what you see from the manufacturers because they have the big equipment to make them. Most arbors won't hold a 1" dado stack. You'll just end up with more fingers. I have used both the table saw with 3/4 inch dado and a router with a 3/4 inch bit. I prefer the table saw, but that may be more because my cabinet saw is super solid, whereas I have a somewhat cheepy tabletop router table. I use the same jig on either one, just have to adjust it a little between the two.

Re: Wood working equipment

I'd like to add that you can make your finger joints any width you want, so long as it's at least as wide as your dado stack...all it takes is making 2 or more passes on your stack & you could make even 4" wide cuts with a 3/4" stack (although I think 1.5-2.5" would prob. be about the biggest that'd be useful for beekeeping purposes.

Re: Wood working equipment

Rob is exactly right. In fact, you don't have to make the fingers the same size on both pieces, either. You could cut a couple of two inch fingers on one piece and just make the slots to match on the adjoining piece and you'd still have a pretty solid joint. That is what I plan to do on the next set of boxes I make.

Re: Wood working equipment

Want to save money on your lumber, buy it from a local custom sawyer. Here in NC most are selling pine for 50 cents a board foot. A 1x12x8 is $4 that's for rough cut not KD probably common. At $1 a bf I'll KD and plane 2 sides for ya.

Rob was right on the finger joints, any size will do it doesn't have to be 1 inch or 7/8ths, but your set up jig will be the hard part. Get the spacing right and you wiil be happy, off just a smidge and you will hate them during assembly.

Re: Wood working equipment

Good deal guys, this is my first table saw. I wanted the cabinet style saw dewalt made but they discontinued it (you can't find ANYTHING made in America no more) it was, mine I bought I will be lucky to have been built in Mexico. The American made cabinet saws were around 3500$ so that was out of the question. I just hope that this contractor grade saw will be good for this kind of work.

Re: Wood working equipment

Most commercial bee box , box joints are 3/4 or 7/8, but any size will work. The larger the finger, the smaller the joint at the bottom will be. I would not make them 1 inch because, if you do, the last joint would only be about 1/4 inch wide.. If you go with 3/4, the last joint will be about 5/8 inch.

I strongly recommend making you a sled for the box joints and let the sled glide in the two grooves in the table. Using only one groove with the T-Square will work fine, but, it is no problem to make a sled, and sliding in two grooves makes it more stable. Once you set it up, box joints are a breeze and fast.

You should be able to find a number of good Craftsman, Delta, Ridgid, table saws for less than $150.00 on Craigslist. I have 6 table saws for my bee box operation, all bought off Craigslist, most expensive one was $150.00. Been using the one for box joints for about 5 years, made hundreds of boxes, and never had a single problem. The others are set for bottom boards, inner covers, tops etc. Never had a problem.

My dado sets are Oshlaun (sp) (on e-bay for $85-$125.00) but, there are other good, perhaps better dado sets. I have been using these two, (one for box joints, one for the groove in side rail of bottom board) for five years and have not had to sharpen them yet.

Re: Wood working equipment

Home Depot sells Rigid tablesaws. Their tools have gotten pretty good reviews plus they have a lifetime guarantee last I heard. I vote for rabbets also for their simplicity. IMHO a tablesaw is all you need unless you are planning to get more involved in woodworking & make other things which I do enjoy. If you do opt for a planer get one with a segmented cutterhead. The initial price is a bite but you will never regret it. All those years of learning to set & tweak knives are gone.

Re: Wood working equipment

I picked up 2 table saws for next to nothing from friends looking to upgrade. One was a nice old heavy Craftsman for $20 and the other a new portable model for $30. I added a new Porter Cable cordless tool set for another $125.

We just bought a stack of 16' cedar boards from a local sawmill. Both 2 and 1 inch boards from 4 to 12 inches wide. A stack of lumber 6' wide by 4' tall for $50. I will have to spend some time on a planer and cut some square edges, but I should end up with some nice boards for pennies.

Re: Wood working equipment

Well Gypsi, Don't feel robbed. by the time you ad cost of the equipment. materials time and etc. it is actually cheaper to buy it. A couple of reasons to make it anyway woudl be control over the quality of materials and craftsmanship. I have seen a beekeeper or two that make some very nice looking hives. this woudl be another big reason to make your own. The last reason to make it yourself is that for those that like woodworking. they are going to be in the shop making something anyway. For me it is a good way to burn off that excess, "I should be doing something" energy.